And More Things To Learn
by Shadowy Star
Summary: Ever since their first night, Gerald keeps discovering new things about Damien. This Yule he's going make use of them. My X-Mas fic for this year. D/G


**And More Things To Learn**

by Shadowy Star

December 2015

 **Disclaimer:** I don't own the Coldfire trilogy. It belongs to C.S. Friedman. I do own this story. Characters, places, locations and organizations not appearing or being mentioned in the books are also mine. Do not archive or translate or otherwise use without permission.

 **Summary:** Ever since their first night, Gerald keeps discovering new things about Damien. This Yule he's going make use of them.

 **A/N:** My X-Mas fic for this year. Got the idea on my way home, because I recently discovered you can still learn things about people you thought you knew better than yourself. Unlike in RL, I gave this pairing the sugary side of it and a happy ending. I apologize for copious amounts of domestic feels. Probably overcompensation on my part.

Also done as an exercise in writing characters' hobbies and interests without boring the readers to death. Hopefully. While it gets mentioned somewhere in WTNF that Damien can draw, the rest is just my overly active imagination.

Set in the Survivalsverse, five years or so after the main fic.

* * *

"See something he'd like?" Margerie Ross, owner of the one art supplies shop in Yamas, smiles as Gerald raises his head. Her lined face under exceptionally short, silver gray hair acquires an expression of fond amusement. That might be because he's been here for over an hour, of course.

He shakes his head and continues to browse the large selection of moleskin sketchbooks in front of him. Picking up one, he runs a fingertip along its spiral binding, then across rich brown cover and returns to his thoughts of before. Like Damien's hair, really...

Ever since their first night, Gerald keeps discovering new things about his husband. Little facts like his other's favorite color (forest green), favorite food (surprisingly, nu-cherry cheesecake) and drink (unsurprisingly, beer out of Jahanna), things he likes to do on rainy mornings (besides making love), books he likes to read (besides medical research papers) and thousands other things their link has never showed him. In the beginning, it were those little things that finally convinced him he wasn't having prolonged and extremely realistic hallucinations when he woke up with his husband's arms around him in their first year together. Over time, it has become his favorite sport to learn them – even those his other didn't know himself. Also, knowing such things has made shopping for gifts a lot easier.

He shudders at how close he's come to botch it, their first New Year's Eve. Thanks to his usual attention to detail, that has never happened again.

He's learned that contrary to common misconception Damien enjoys to sleep in when he has the chance (probably an old habit, just never discovered on their journeys). When he doesn't, he is a delightful person before his first cup of coffee. _Not_. Gerald knows Damien abhors dreadful hospital coffee (he's never going to repeat his mistake of tasting that dubious concoction) but would keep going for forty and more hours drinking nothing else when he's called in, however rarely, to work on critical cases (because of course, the owner and director of Yamas' one hospital has quickly figured the perks of having the most prominent cardiologist on Erna living within one hour's ride).

So Gerald, who firmly believes a cup of heavily sweetened tea is a delight straight from Heaven, now more often than not finds himself hunting for new brands of coffee –and on one remarkable occasion the newly-reinvented coffee maker– in every town or city he visits. Every single time, it has earned him that deeply contented, extremely rare smile he wants to keep on Damien's face for the rest of his life.

He knows Damien actually dislikes the color white (how he managed to look that breathtakingly majestic in his Order's white and gold ceremonial armor keeps escaping Gerald to this very day) and this is why shirts in all shades of pale blue, silvery gray, crème, caramel and champagne now populate his other's closet, courtesy of Gerald's unerring fashion sense, of course. He has to admit he loves dressing Damien up (that and trying to sneak that one pale pink, ahem, _peach colored_ shirt into the steadily growing collection just to see the horrified look on his beloved's face). On the other hand, the way how those shirts compliment his other's broad shoulders and narrow waist should be probably forbidden by law.

He's learned that Damien loves backing, feeding Gerald's sweet tooth his favorite pastime on long winter weekends, when creation of various cookies, cakes, and pies fills their home with delicious smells of cinnamon, vanilla, chocolate, caramel and still warm dough. He always tries to taste it –honestly, who wouldn't– which usually earns him the lightest of smacks against his fingers with whatever kitchen implement Damien happens to be holding in his hand at the time. He hopes Damien never learns just how much he enjoys watching him bake or he'll never live it down. And so, assorted baking implements have slowly found their way onto the shelves, even some new and fashionable like that mixer he's brought from the Jaggonath expo last year, ignoring his other's complaints of how one can mix ingredients just as well by hand. Damien's revenge for that were raisin cookies in rather … suggestive shapes (no less suggestive comments from the devious man included, of course).

Damien enjoys (and excels at, in Gerald's not so humble opinion) drawing, sitting on their veranda on lazy summer evenings, always sketching something – and when he would demand to see, his beloved would quickly hide it until a few days later he'd walk into their bedroom and discover the completed picture on his bedside table. Sometimes, it's a still life – nu-apples in their bowl in the kitchen, flowers and vegetables from their garden, another potted plant on the window sill, bravely defying Gerald's Black Thumb of DoomTM (as his infuriating other keeps calling it despite his continued and vehement protests, honestly, how difficult would it be to keep potted plants alive), even a stack of yet unread books both enjoy adding to.

Sometimes there are portraits of Damien's new colleagues from the hospital, usually doing something silly after shift like that now infamous wheelchair race (which Gerald will deny eagerly participating in for the rest of forever). On days when something happened his other doesn't want to talk about it's something simple yet heartbreakingly beautiful like sunsets and sunrises, cloud formations in an otherwise clear sky, soft fall of rain.

Sometimes it's something or someone from their past – the desert vista in the Undying Prince's realm, beautiful and deadly. The dae in Briand where they first met that doesn't exist anymore, swallowed up by a quake twelve years ago. The Jaggonath Cathedral, proud and magnificent with its stained-glass windows and high arches. The Keeper of Souls' fortress, Mount Shaitan exploding, the Golden Glory, Hesseth, Ciani, Jenseny. All are always done in monochrome, a slower healing, an already lessened pain captured in charcoal or graphite – yet still there after so many years, bleeding over from each line.

After nights when Damien startles awake due to a particularly bad nightmare (less frequent now, if not less intense, not yet) and doesn't return to bed at all, it's always him. He'll find a picture of himself doing mostly mundane things (and what's with Damien's fixation with his eyes anyway – they are a boring black now, yet he'll never going to regret his last Working) and marvel at the vivid joy and celebration of life the artist expertly placed into each one. It's those nights when their lovemaking is full of more than need (though some things they've done with, for and to each other on less burdened nights still makes even _him_ blush), more than passion – on nights like these they seem to transcend physical reality and touch the other in the very core of their souls.

This jolts him from his thoughts, brings him back to the shop and the sketchbook in his hand.

The first time Damien and he have been here, almost four years ago, his other more resembled a kid in the candy store than a experienced medic with nerves of steel.

"Found something?" Margerie asks again, the 'Closed' sign already in her hand.

"Yes... No," Gerald makes. After one or two long conversations on drawing supplies with his daughter-in-law, he has been feeling up to the task. While the new set of pastels (forty two colors, ten shades of sepia, and eight tones of gray) has been easy to pick and secure, given her detailed instructions, sketchbooks have turned out to be a problem. Speaking of Geraldine, the one with the blue leather cover would be something she'd enjoy using. "I'll take this one," he says as the elderly woman sighs in obvious relief and starts carefully wrapping it, "for my daughter-in-law. As for my husband..." He considers his options and finally picks a set of two different sizes, both with spiral bindings and covers in leather of deep forest green, smooth like silk to the touch. Ah, well, selecting high quality products has always paid off in the past.

As is does this time. Because the look of boundless joy and soul deep happiness in his husband's eyes when he holds his gift in his hands two days later (has probably nothing to do with the books as such) is all Gerald has ever wanted, in any lifetime. And to know there are many more things to learn.

 _FIN_


End file.
